// guides
n8n vs custom code.
n8n is genuinely good. For linear workflows — form comes in, row gets added, Slack gets pinged — it's faster to build, cheaper to run, and easier to hand to a non-engineer than anything custom. If your automation is a straight line, use n8n and don't hire us.
The line where it breaks is the same line where most real business processes live: branching logic, retries that need judgment, data models with history, anything an LLM has to reason about across steps. Past that line, a visual canvas becomes a debugging surface, and every workflow becomes the one person who understands the spaghetti.
The practical decision
the workflow fits in one screen, failure is cheap (a missed Slack ping, not a missed invoice), volume is low, and the person maintaining it isn't an engineer.
the process has state — customers, balances, histories; when a silent failure costs real money; when AI is doing the reasoning, because prompt logic buried in workflow nodes can't be versioned, tested, or reviewed; or when per-execution pricing starts to look like a salary.
n8n for the shallow glue, custom code for the core. We build this shape often — the custom system does the thinking, n8n does the notifying.
What custom looks like from us
Code in a git repo you own, tested, deployed on infrastructure billed to your account, documented so any future engineer can pick it up. Our own automations run this way in public — one of them rebuilds itself from a scrape of 413 cities every two hours, unattended, and has for months; it's under // live below. That's the operational bar custom work should meet before you pay for it.
Common questions
Yes — for linear, low-stakes workflows it is often the right choice. It breaks down when processes involve branching logic, stateful data, LLM reasoning across steps, or failures that cost real money.
When the process has state and history, when silent failures are expensive, when AI logic needs to be versioned and tested like code, or when per-execution platform pricing exceeds the cost of owning the system outright.
Yes, and it is often the best architecture: custom code for the core logic and data, n8n for shallow glue like notifications and simple triggers.
studio@anchor163.com
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// live
usedrestaurantequipmentfinder.com — scrapes 413 cities every two hours and redeploys itself